Tuesday, February 23, 2010

You guys wanna hear a story about the time I met Jerry Only from The Misfits? I must preface this with a brief explanation: I used to be really into professional wrestling. Like, really really into it. Like, I actually went to WrestleMania. I am not talking about when I was 8. I'm talking post-virginity. I used to carry around in my wallet a trading card of The Rock and a black and white photo of Shawn Michaels I clipped out of a wrestling magazine. I read wrestling gossip sites every day (this was in pre-blog times). I bought wrestling magazines. I owned wrestling t-shirts. I made my own t-shirts. I went to shitty local pro wrestling events with about 30 people in the audience at the Somerville, MA version of Dave & Busters.

I bought pay-per-view events.

So a friend and I bought tickets to see The Misfits play at Roseland. When we showed up, there was a sign taped to the door that the show was canceled. Since we were in midtown on a Thursday evening, I suggested we go to the WWF restaurant (now the Hard Rock Cafe). When we arrived, guess who's there: Jerry Only, in full Misfits makeup and outfit.

At this time, there was a wrestler in WCW, Vampiro, whom Jerry had been acting as the manger/valet for. Vampiro's schtick was basically "Misfits fan" (wrestling fans may notice this was a copycat of Sting's post-neon Crow look). Around this exact moment, several wrestlers from WCW ("The Radicalz") were about to switch over to WWF (I knew because I obsessively read wrestling gossip websites).

I don't think I've ever actually gone up and talked to a famous person, and I'm only an average Misfits fan, but the thing here was that I was a HUGE wrestling fan. Seeing someone affiliated with WCW at the WWF restaurant was like the hugest scoop ever, and I had to find out. So I summoned my courage to go over to him, and we talked about Eric Bishoff, the state of WCW, and wrestling for a half hour or so.

Ok, I get it. it's not like I met Glen Danzig, Jerry Only sucks, yeah yeah yeah. That's what a Misfits fan would say. But a wrestling fan? This was a huge deal.

WAIT YOU LIVE IN SOMERVILLE!?!?!?! OMG OMG YOU'RE LESS THAN 10 MINUTES AWAY FROM ME RIGHT NOW. It's like we're at a party and you're in the back room and I'm on the dance floor. And then someone threw up on me so I went home.

i used to be a smart mark wrestling fan too! backyard wrestling, gossip pages, pay-per-views blah blah blah..i grew out of it around age 14 when i discovered pot and punk rock. there was some overlap there, though, when the misfits did wcw...

ps. i used to date a guy from somerville and spent a lot of time there. great town.